Over a number of years research has been directed to the isolation of proteins from animal muscle tissue and the application of such isolated proteins to various foods to achieve improved functionality in comparison with foods cooked without such proteins. For example, when certain of these prior art proteins have been sprayed onto food to be cooked by frying, the cooked food has a reduced fat content over food that does not include such protein. In other applications, food cooked with the addition of such prior art protein, as by injection, retains more moisture than untreated cooked food.
Food safety is an important concern in today's modern food processing plants and methods are often being sought after to reduce overall bacteria or pathogen counts. For some foods, pasteurization is selected as a food preservation method; in others, sterilization. In many countries, such as Australia, the importation of meat products into a country requires that the meat products be either pasteurized or sterilized before such products can be imported to that country.
When harvesting has been completed, some animal muscle tissue remains attached to bones. Such attached animal muscle tissue is a potentially commercially viable animal muscle tissue for obtaining protein. “Deboning” is a process for recovering such residual animal muscle tissue from the bones. During deboning animal muscle tissue is separated from a bone by scraping, shaving or pressing the attached animal muscle tissue from the bone. Deboned product is called “deboned meat” or “separated meat.” While such a process theoretically could provide an economical source of animal muscle tissue for the isolation of protein, commercial deboning commonly tests high in bacteria and/or positive in food-borne pathogens, including salmonella. Due to the inherent risk of these bacteria many food processors require any product including mechanically deboned meat or even protein obtained from mechanically deboned meat be fully cooked for human consumption for health reasons and not sold in a raw state. Specifically, a food processing company must heat a “ready-to-eat” product to an internal temperature of at least 160° F. to achieve a lethality in the range of 6.5-log10 to 7.0-log10. This requirement limits the applications for mechanically deboned meat primarily by imposing significant manufacturing costs and by producing a meat product that is “well done” and that loses moisture during cooking.
A need exists for a procedure that could assure pasteurization or sterilization of meat products without reducing the meat's functionality. Also, a further need exists for a procedure that could utilize a starting material that is potentially inherently high in pathogens, such as deboned meat. Yet, a further need exists for a food preparation method for obtaining protein from animal meat or mechanically deboned meat whereby the protein product can be consumed alone or added to raw meat such that the final product meets or exceeds the government and commercial standards for bacteria and toxic content without cooking the raw meat and that retains moisture prior to a consumer's cooking the final product.